


Just for Now

by Lysical



Series: first steps home [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batfam Week 2017, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 12:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11230779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysical/pseuds/Lysical
Summary: Jason was back in Gotham and the timing couldn't be worse for him to need assistance on a case. He didn't want to see any of the Bats and he was sure the feeling was mutual.Nightwing was the worst option for Oracle to pick to help him out.





	Just for Now

**Author's Note:**

> I finally managed to finish something for Batfam Week! I wrote this while just as sick as Jason is, apologies for any typos or the like. I'll clean it up again on re-reads.

Jason’s chest burned.

He stayed where he was on his hands and knees, surrounded by unconscious thugs, and coughed, over and over, unable to stop until he started retching instead.

“Fuck.” Going out that night had been a mistake. With a shudder, he spat on the ground, a futile attempt at ridding his mouth of the aftertaste of bile, and finally pushed himself up and got to his feet. He wavered for a moment, locked his knees to keep his feet, and took a shaky breath. Breathing too deeply was an issue, the memory of his latest coughing fit making each inhale tentative.

He’d won the fight, so he was safe for the moment, but the job wasn’t done. His ability to complete it, on the other hand, was severely compromised. He wasn’t a complete idiot; he knew when it was time to call it quits. He hadn’t felt that bad when he’d left his safe house, but the coughing had been getting worse all night and judging from how gloriously cool the air felt against his face, he could add a fever to the list of symptoms.

Jason grimaced, bending to pick up the helmet he’d tossed to the ground when the coughing had gotten bad and slipping it carefully back into place. It took a few more seconds, standing in the empty warehouse, while his chest tightened and what felt like an insect made out of razorblades crawled up his throat, before he gave in and activated his comm.

“Oracle.” His voice came out thin and cracked.

“Hood? Didn’t know you were back in town.”

Jason grimaced. The modulator didn’t give him any clue about Babs’ tone. He imagined she probably wasn’t best pleased with him, considering...everything. They had a tentative truce—Oracle was nothing if not professional—but he didn’t imagine she was overjoyed that he’d shown his face back in Gotham. Too fucking bad. “You have anyone free? I need to hand a case off.”

Oracle made a thoughtful noise. “You sound terrible.”

“Thus handing the case off.” Jason choked on his next breath as an insistent tickle at the back of his throat refused to let him ignore it. It was a very angry razorblade insect. “Just—do you have anyone?”

By the time Oracle replied, Jason had moved to lean against one of the warehouse walls, sliding to the ground and hanging his head between his knees.

“All right. Nightwing is on his way. Hold out for fifteen minutes.”

Jason closed his eyes and cringed. Nightwing? On his way? He had only meant to give up the location of the other shipment.

This could only end badly.

***

Nightwing had misgivings. He was prepared for a fight, for dead bodies, for Red Hood to laugh and continue to spit in the face of everything Batman had ever taught him. He didn’t know why he’d even agreed to go.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Better he fall into one of Red Hood’s schemes than any of the younger ones.

He approached the warehouse near Port Adams, the location Oracle had given him, cautious because he was far from an idiot and even if, by all accounts, Red Hood wasn’t quite the same as the guy who’d broken into Titans Tower and beaten Tim to hell and back, Nightwing wasn’t willing to just forget it had ever happened.

There were at least a dozen unconscious thugs when he arrived, sprawled out on the cold concrete ground. Nightwing frowned, detouring to zip tie them all and call it in for the GCPD. At least no one was dead. Straightening up, he looked around the warehouse. “Hood?”

The quiet was broken by choked, harsh coughing, and Nightwing finally spotted Red Hood, mostly hidden behind a pillar, slumped against the wall. A jolt of panic had him moving over before he could think about traps or danger, crouching down beside Red Hood and checking him over for any injuries. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Voice cracked and strained, Red Hood coughed again before slumping further against the wall. One of his hands was hooked around the catches to the helmet, like he wanted to rip it off. “There’s another shipment coming in, over at Dixon Docks. I didn’t mean for you to come he—” Red Hood jerked away, scrambling to get the helmet off, coughing violently. Nightwing backed away to give him room, waiting for the coughing fit to pass. After a couple of seconds of hacking, Red Hood finally turned back, leaving his helmet off and meeting Nightwing’s gaze with glazed, feverish eyes.

He wasn’t wearing a mask. Nightwing felt winded, suddenly, and it was inane to even care about something so small, but it was the first time he’d seen Jason’s face, really seen it, since he’d come back. He looked both younger and older than Nightwing had been expecting, and he was thrown, staring at him in stunned silence while Jason coughed again and scowled at him.

Red Hood was Red Hood and Jason was a fifteen year old boy, smaller than Tim, and none of it was meshing up right in his head at the moment.

“You don’t look so hot, little wing.” Nightwing nearly bit his tongue off, trying to catch the endearment too late. Jason’s scowl deepened, and his nose still scrunched up when he was annoyed, in the exact same way it used to when he was sulking.

He kind of felt like crying.

“The shipment?” Jason asked.

Nightwing reached up and tapped at his comm. “Red Robin, you free? I need eyes over at Dixon Docks, a shipment is coming in that we want to make sure doesn’t get to the streets.”

Jason stared at him in blank confusion while Nightwing coordinated with Red Robin.

Nightwing smiled at him, tight and wavering. “Up you get. I’m going to get you back to your safe house and make sure you’re okay.”

He could tell by the tightening in Jason’s jaw and the furrow of his brows that he was going to have a fight on his hands.

***

Jason didn’t give up his safe house’s location, but it didn’t seem to matter to Nightwing, who simply dragged him back to his own place instead.

It was a little surreal, finding himself on Dick Grayson’s couch, bundled in blankets and with a bottle of water shoved into his hands so he could ‘stay hydrated’. Jason wondered if maybe he had progressed to hallucinations. Everything had taken on a...fuzzy quality, like the world was not quite real anymore.

“Why are you doing this? The last time you saw me you accused me of murder,” Jason said, grimacing and clearing his throat. His chest got tight and he closed his eyes for a moment, forcing the coughing fit back. When he opened his eyes the world swam and his head felt weighted with lead.

Nightwing glanced over from where he was rooting through a first-aid kit. He’d ditched his mask but the rest of his suit remained. Considering how things were between them, Jason didn’t consider him anything but Nightwing, even so. “That’s because you kill people, Jason.”

Anger burned hot in his chest and Jason bared his teeth. “Not people who don’t deserve it.”

“Yeah, and you’re the sole judge, jury and executioner, right?” Nightwing shook his head. “That’s not how we operate, you know that.”

“Spare me your moral high ground.”

Nightwing’s head snapped around. “Moral nothing, Jason! I was a cop, for fuck’s sake. You think I did that and went out there not prepared to pull the trigger if i really had to? All it takes is one mistake, one piece of information you don’t have, and suddenly you’ve executed an innocent—and that wipes away any good you think you do by killing the bad ones. Vigilantes are only tolerated as long as we toe the line.”

He had arguments—many of them, he hadn’t just decided to kill people on a goddamn whim—but his brain utterly refused to drag them into his mouth and form words. Instead, he sat there on Nightwing’s couch, burning with anger and fever both, while something in his throat dragged and pulled with every tentative breath. The next coughing fit lasted longer, and he barely noticed Nightwing approached with the thermometer, sticking it in his ear while Jason was distracted by the way his chest rattled and his head pounded.

Nightwing clucked his tongue. “You never should have gone out like this, little wing.”

What the absolute hell did he think he was doing, calling him that? Jason opened his mouth to say something to that effect but choked on his next breath and gave up doing anything except sitting very still and breathing very shallowly.  

“I’ll get you more blankets.” A hand ruffled his hair and Jason was definitely hallucinating, he had to be. They weren’t anything to each other, not now and barely when Jason had been a kid. Nightwing’s footsteps were loud and echoed in Jason’s head as he left the living room. Jason stared off into the middle distance and then deliberately shook himself, getting to his feet and making his way to the window and climbing out.

He needed to escape before this night got even more bizarre.

***

Dick had expected Jason to attempt to run. When he came back out into the living room of his safe house, blanket in hand, and saw the couch empty of Jason and the window still open, he wasn’t actually surprised that Jason had left, only that he’d actually managed in his condition.

“Son of a—” it was directed towards himself, for underestimating Jason. Sick as he was, Dick had thought the kid incapable of moving anywhere, let alone escaping into the night. It had been a long while since he’d needed to remember how stubborn Jason had been. Still was.

Definitely still was.

He could leave him, shrug and let the Red Hood disappear into the night and take care of himself, but it would feel like giving up. Bruce might like to pretend that nothing had changed, but Jason was alive, and that was worth more than staring at a memorial case and pleading ignorance, no matter what Jason had done. Even if Dick himself hadn’t been so good about remembering that, up until now.

Jason was still his little brother.

And Dick wasn’t the same as back then. He’d gone through other siblings, been a better sibling for them than he’d been for Jason, and he’d even survived months of Damian. Jason was still the same stubborn little shit he’d always been, but he didn’t know exactly how well prepared Dick was for dealing with that these days.

He grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contact list, smirking as he put the call through.

There was no reason he had to play nice. Big brothers had to have some fun, after all.

***

It took Jason twice as long as it should have to get to his nearest safe house, and he’d had to compromise and go to one that he didn’t even have properly set up yet. Unlike the rest of his ramshackle places, his place in Old Gotham was in a nice building and, if he actually had the time to properly outfit it, would be more appropriately named an apartment than a safe house.

He owned the whole building, had brought it up under one of the aliases that Talia had supplied him with, one unconnected to Red Hood or anything criminal. All his tenants were paying below market rent and most of them were aware, or at least suspected, who their landlord really was. It had made the decision to rent one of the apartments himself—another another alias, one he’d sourced himself and had nothing to do with even Talia—an easy choice.

He was barely settled on his old worn couch when there was a knock at the door. Jason tensed all over. No one should be knocking on that door, the place wasn’t even officially rented yet, as far as his tenants were aware. No one should have been able to track him down here.

Staying on the couch and refusing to answer only prompted another knock at the door, before he was accosted by Dick Grayson’s obnoxious voice: “Open the door, Jason. I know you’re in there.”

How in the actual fuck.

His indignation was enough to spur him to his feet and over to the door, swinging it open. He was greeted with Dick, out of costume and smirking smugly, and Alfred Pennyworth, who was inscrutable as only Alfred could be. Jason froze, staring at Alfred while horror clawed its way up his throat to share what little space his persistent razorblade insect hadn’t already taken up. “How did you—”

“I’m not an idiot, Jason.” Dick moved forward, used Jason’s complete stupor to take him by the shoulders and turn him around, directing him back inside the apartment. “I tagged you back at my place. Didn’t actually expect to need the damn thing, but here we are.”

“You colossal asshole.” It was hypocritical of him, considering some of the shit he had pulled on the Bats, but Jason wasn’t above hypocrisy when people invaded his safe spaces. He didn’t exactly have many. “I wanted to keep this place.”

“There’s no reason to fret, Master Jason.” Alfred closed the door gently and made his way over to the couch Dick was manhandling Jason towards. “We have no desire to compromise your safety.”

Jason found himself pushed back down onto the couch, staring at Alfred and utterly unable to speak to him.

Dick straightened up and looked around with a frown. “This place is pretty bare, Alfred. I’ll bring the stuff up from the car.”

Closing his eyes, Jason leaned back against the couch. “‘Stuff’?”

“Alfred is going to take care of you,” Dick said, sounding far too amused. “I’ll be right back.”

“There’s no rush, Master Richard.” Jason felt the couch shift as Alfred sat down next to him. “I have much to discuss with Master Jason while you’re gone.”

Oh _God._

Dick snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

Jason waited until Dick had left, front door clicking closed behind him, before he opened his eyes and looked at Alfred. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Alfred raised one eyebrow. “And why is that, Master Jason?”

“Come on,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t just burn bridges, I pretty thoroughly nuked them. I’m not delusional, I didn’t do that and expect anything to survive.”  

“You always were a very dramatic child,” Alfred replied.  

Laughing was a bad idea, but Jason couldn’t help it. “That’s one way to put it.” When he sat back after the next coughing fit, he was too exhausted to even protest the blanket Alfred draped over him. “What are you doing here, Alfie? For real?”

“I’m going to look after you, like I haven’t been able to for a very long time now,” Alfred replied, and Jason might’ve been tearing up but he swore it was from the coughing. Alfred took one of Jason’s hands in his own and squeezed. “After that, I thought I might ask you to consider coming home.”

Jason closed his eyes and squeezed Alfred’s hand. He still felt like he was burning alive from the inside with fever, but Alfred’s hand was cool and felt real, despite the rest of the world swimming around him. “You guys are fucking cheats, coming when I’m down like this.”

“When has anyone in this family ever played fair?” A hand brushed his hair out of his face. “For now, just allow me to help you, Master Jason. We can deal with the rest of it when you’re well.”

He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes roughly and nodded.

“Just for now.”

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://lysical.tumblr.com). I recently remade so if you were following the old one and want to keep reading my rambling, you'll have to follow again. XD


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